


Location + Word Twitter Prompt Fills

by attackofthezee (noxlunate)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Gilmore Girls Setting, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beach House, Camping, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Dryad Steve, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Magic Potions, Sacrifice, Snow, Thunderstorms, green witch steve, twitter prompt fills, watching twilight together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:26:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25172338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlunate/pseuds/attackofthezee
Summary: A collection of very short prompt fills from a location + word twitter meme.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 74
Kudos: 180





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These are for [this meme](https://twitter.com/attackofthezee/status/1281337815087943686?s=20) on twitter. I was gonna post these all there but then the first one ended up being much longer than 100 words so oops they're here instead.

**_[coffee shop + thunderstorm](https://twitter.com/history_huh/status/1281338747586400257?s=20) _ **

There’s a customer who comes into Steve’s coffee shop almost every day. He always takes the table near the window with the hideous red plaid chair and sits on a laptop or with a book. He also nearly always stays until just before closing.

Steve might be annoyed that the guy spends so long taking up a table, but he drinks coffee like he’s dying for it, and Steve won’t lie and pretend he  _ doesn’t  _ create a pretty nice view when things get a little slow and there’s not much to occupy himself with. 

He’s late today, and Steve thinks that maybe he won’t stop in today. It’s thunderstorming, rain falling in sheets out the window and thunder and lightning flashing with no real end seemingly in sight. The weather has meant business has been a little slower than usual and Steve’s found himself glancing up towards the door, waiting. 

(Kate’s mocked him mercilessly for it, of course.)

The bell above the door jingles and Steve glances up, already expecting it to be another wet teenager looking to escape the storm. Steve’s had at least 4 this afternoon. They buy a cookie or something else small and loiter until an uber arrives outside and whisks them off again. 

It’s not. 

It’s not a teenager  _ whatsoever.  _

Instead it’s Steve’s favorite customer, soaked to the bone. 

Kate reaches over and very pointedly pushes Steve’s jaw back up. 

Steve’s Incredibly Hot, Favorite Customer (as his employees refer to him) is dripping in the doorway. Dark hair is forming into waves that sort of  _ cling  _ to his face, and a white t-shirt is so soaked through that it’s practically painted on. 

There’s nothing left to the imagination and sadly for Steve, everything is  _ so much better  _ than whatever Steve had imagined before this current moment in time. 

“Uh, hi,” Steve’s favorite customer says and Steve is suddenly hit with the realization that he’s never actually heard the guy speak -somehow, someone else has always taken his order- and his voice is nice. It’s  _ very _ nice. “Sorry for dripping.” 

Oh. 

Oh no. 

Steve is so, definitively, screwed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 400+ words of family tree house shenanigans ft deserumed Steve, canon divergence from Endgame, and one seven year old. I'm not sorry.

_**[Treehouse + Fireflies](https://twitter.com/spacerenegades/status/1281338841216016387?s=20) ** _

Graham is seven when he requests - neigh,  _ demands  _ his dads build him a treehouse. 

Reginald Abbot in his class has a treehouse, he tells them seriously, which means Graham is falling tremendously behind when compared to his classmates. 

“His parents stuck him with the name Reginald, kid, they  _ had  _ to get him one to make up for it,” Bucky says, but Steve finds him later that night, sat cross legged in the middle of their bed with his laptop open, clicking through multiple tabs on building a treehouse. 

“So we’re building a treehouse, huh?” Steve asks, sliding into the spot behind Bucky and placing a kiss to the back of Bucky’s neck. 

“Of course not,” Bucky says in the way that means ‘ _ absolutely’  _ and Steve resigns himself to inevitably smashing his thumb at least a million times in the process of building. 

Almost a decade ago- after Thanos, after Steve returned with the soul stone but without the serum coursing through his veins, after they got Bucky and Sam and  _ everyone  _ back and saved the goddamn universe. After all of that, Steve wouldn’t have predicted in a hundred million goddamn years that he’d be here. 

Here, in the broader sense, but also here being perched in a treehouse that Bucky had built by hand with much less help from Graham and Steve than either had promised, his hand curled with his husband’s while they watch their son flit about their backyard attempting to catch fireflies in a jar. 

Steve does his best to savor this moment that nine years ago- twenty years ago- a whole goddamn century ago he wouldn’t have dreamed of, to commit it to memory so that he can capture it on paper later, but being present seems a little more important when his son is suddenly at the base of the tree, waving a jar with a flickering firefly in it proudly at them. 

“I caught one,” He says, thrusting the jar towards them and Steve feels a twinge of sympathy for the poor firefly trapped in the jar of an overly enthusiastic seven year old. 

“That’s great kiddo, now maybe let the poor firefly go and come play in the treehouse your dad built for you.” 

“He can’t,” Bucky says, and Steve can see a trace of a grin on his face, the look of a father about to rile up his kid and then regret it in a couple hours when said child is nearly impossible to put to bed, “I decided it’s mine now. No kids allowed.” 

This, predictably, earns an outraged “ _ nuh-uh! _ ” as Graham barrels up the ladder and straight at Bucky. 

Down below, a lone firefly escapes from it’s glass jar, and in the tree house Steve takes up his son’s side in what becomes a truly ridiculous and mostly nonsensical argument regarding tree house ownership rights. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern Steve and Bucky go camping!

_**[Moon + Crickets](https://twitter.com/steebadore/status/1281339500786900992?s=20) ** _

Steve can’t remember exactly who in his friend group’s bright idea it was to go  _ camping  _ but he’s decided in the space of an afternoon spent trekking around the wilderness, having to put up a tent, and cooking on a fire that he has a lifelong vendetta against them. 

Steve Rogers can safely say he’s not  _ meant  _ to camp. 

He’s been bitten by approximately seven thousand bugs, he’s sweaty, he’s thirsty, and the wilderness is all at once too quiet and too loud for his city dwelling soul. 

“C’mon grumpy gus,” Bucky says, taking Steve by the arm and leading him from where he’s been sat by the fire, coating himself liberally with bug spray in an attempt to keep the mosquitoes from straight up eating him. “Let’s actually  _ enjoy  _ the wilderness.” 

“Oh god,  _ you _ were the one who decided we should do this weren’t you?” Steve asks, horrified, “I’d blocked it out so that we could stay friends.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” Bucky tells him, leading the way to what appears to be a clearing with a blanket spread out and a lantern dimly illuminating the area. 

“Not all of us spent our childhoods in the rough and tumble wilderness of Indiana, going on scout trips and milking cows,” Steve says, plopping down to sit cross legged on the blanket. Steve can hear what sounds like ten million crickets chirping around him and he’s not dishonest enough with himself to claim that’s not unsettling. At least to himself.

Bucky gives Steve a look like he doesn’t quite know what to do with him and settles down beside him, laying back and gesturing for Steve to join him. “What do you think a life in the midwest consists of?” 

“I just said. Milking cows, scout trips, chewing corn, drinking ranch straight from the galleon jug. Y’know, normal midwestern things,” Steve says, laying back next to Bucky. He tries not to be too impressed by the expanse of stars and the bright, full moon above him, but it’s a little hard, he’s not gonna lie. 

Bucky snorts, his shoulder shaking with his laughter where it’s pressed into Steve’s. “You’re an idiot, Rogers,” He says, but it sounds impossibly fond, and his point isn’t exactly helped by the way his fingers have curled through Steve’s own on the blanket between them. 

Steve glances down at their hands where they’re laced together, and then at Bucky’s features, lit up in the starlight. 

“Did you bring me all the way out into the wilderness to make a move? Because you could have done that in Brooklyn and cost less than the gas to get us all out here. I mean-”

Which is about when Bucky finally shuts him up by leaning over and kissing him. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Green Witch Steve is great with plants. Except for cacti. Until dryad Bucky helps. Also Natasha is a cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled so hard to wrap this one up! I probably could have spent several thousand words on it and might, depending on how things go, eventually have to expand this into an actual fic one day.

**_[Balcony + Cactus](https://twitter.com/softestbuck/status/1281339637433335809?s=20) _ **

“I’m a green witch,” Steve says firmly to the little line of potted cacti on a shelf on his balcony, “which means I’m  _ good with plants.  _ Which means you will  _ live this time.”  _

The cacti seem blissfully unaware of Steve’s words, and also of the fate of every other cactus that Steve has ever brought home. The cacti who came before them and met a terrible fate on Steve’s balcony. 

In Steve’s defense it’s not his  _ fault.  _ Something and him and cacti just don’t work together. They don’t vibe. They don’t  _ jive.  _ He can keep other plants alive just fine. Give him a fiddle leaf fig and it will thrive. A rose bush will bloom beautifully. A spider plant will grow so fast that it overtakes the corner Steve had set for it. 

But cacti. Cacti seem to be his mortal enemy. Which doesn’t stop Steve from attempting to keep them. 

“You. Will.  _ Live.”  _ He tells the group of happy cacti firmly once again, and then from inside the apartment Natasha lets out a warbling meow signaling that Steve should be feeding her  _ right now.  _

“I’ll fix you too,” Steve tells her, a little morose as he goes inside to cook up Natasha’s dinner. He thinks if he tried to feed her cat food she’d kill him in his sleep. 

Weeks later and Steve still hasn’t fixed Natasha and the cacti aren’t exactly doing great either. One cactus looks leggy, another looks a little crisp around the edges, another is starting to shrivel, and still another looks overly plump and waterlogged. 

“I treat you all exactly the same way,” Steve tells the group of incredibly sad looking cacti on his balcony. “You should  _ not  _ be dying on me. This is impossible.” 

Natasha yowls at him and circles around his ankles. 

“I have no idea what you mean,” Steve tells her. 

She meows again, this one a chirping thing, and then sits on Steve’s foot. 

“Take that back! I don’t need  _ help.”  _

Natasha’s ears go straight out to the side and she gives him a look that Steve can only describe as flat. 

A week or so later and Steve gives in and gets help. 

“Aren’t you a green witch?” The dryad, Bucky, that Sam had gotten him in touch with asks, touching some of Steve’s other plants on his balcony. He has a little potted Meyer lemon tree that Bucky is currently touching the leaves of and normally Steve would gripe about the invasion of personal plant space but the tree seems perfectly happy about it. 

“I  _ am.  _ They just don’t seem to like me,” Steve says, reaching out absently to funnel a little bit of magic into one of the cacti. It doesn’t seem to appreciate it and when Steve pulls back there’s a spike wedged in his finger for his troubles. “See?” 

Natasha, from where she’s perched in the cat tree Steve had set up for her on the balcony a good three weeks into realizing that figuring out how to fix the whole Natasha problem was going to take a lot more time than Steve expected, meows judgmentally in agreement. 

“I’ll talk to them,” Bucky says, and Steve and Natasha exchange a look that communicates the simple truth of the universe that dryads are  _ weird.  _

It’s not their fault, he guesses. Green witches are connected to their plants, but dryads make green witches look like passing acquaintances to all things green and growing. That level of connection with plants - who are patently ridiculous, Steve would like to state for the record- is bound to make a person a little weird. 

There’s quiet. Awkward quiet as Bucky The Dryad apparently communes with Steve’s cacti and Steve shifts from foot to foot, attempting to not feel weird in what is normally his own little balcony oasis. 

After a moment Bucky looks from the group of very sad and ornery cacti, to Steve, and says “Your magic is hostile to desert plants.” 

Which, Steve’s magic isn’t  _ hostile.  _ Steve’s a green witch! He loves all plants! Even the dumb spiky ones. 

“You know what, I think I’ve got this handled actually. Thank you for your services. I’ll be sure to leave a five star review and recommend you to my friends,” Steve says, very pointedly leading the dryad off his balcony and out of his apartment. 

When he returns Natasha looks judgemental. She might not be able to speak these days, but Steve can very clearly hear her  _ ‘Wow. Great going Rogers.’ _

A week later Steve dials Bucky The Dryad’s number. 

“What did you mean by my magic is  _ hostile?”  _ He asks the second Bucky picks up. He’s sat at the edge of his balcony, his legs dangling over and his forehead pressed against the bars of the fence surrounding it in absolute dismay over the current state of his plants. Below him, on the street, he can hear a group of centaurs arguing.

“Uh, what?” Bucky asks. His voice sounds rough, like maybe Steve woke him up. Which, okay, Steve had been more than a little preoccupied with other things the last time he’d seen Bucky, but that voice isn’t exactly a  _ bad one.  _ The thought of it accompanied with the sight of Bucky sprawled out in a bed, curls spread out on a pillow is not a  _ bad one.  _

“My magic. You said it’s hostile to my cacti. What did you  _ mean  _ by that?” Steve clarifies. 

“Oh. Yeah. One second-” Steve hears a muffled yawn and then Bucky continues, “Basically you don’t like them as much because they’re not as easy for you and are maybe even as stubborn as you are, so your magic is reacting to that. And the cacti are reacting to your hostile magic and dying, which makes you even more hostile to them. It seems to be a vicious cycle.” 

“And you got all that just from speaking with my cacti?” 

“Well that and meeting you,” Bucky says, and Steve can hear a hint of what sounds like  _ amusement,  _ “You’ve got a little bit of a strong personality.” 

“So what do I do about my cactus problem?” 

“Start with trying to control them a little less and I’ll be back in a week to check up on ‘em.” 

Steve attempts to be nicer to his cactus pals on his balcony. He tries to let them do their thing. To use less magical attempts to get them to do his will. He even attempts a medication video Bucky sent him before he goes out to deal with them. 

In the process Bucky keeps stopping by. Ostensibly to check on Steve’s plants and the progress he’s making with them, but a couple months in when the cacti are actually doing pretty good and Bucky’s still showing up at least twice a week the excuse seems a little thin. 

Judging by the looks Natasha, still frustratingly stuck as a cat, has been giving Bucky when he shows up, she agrees that the excuse that Bucky’s doing it for the plants has gotten weak.

“You know you don’t need an excuse to hang out with me,” Steve tells him one fall evening when they’re sat at the little table on Steve’s balcony, eating sandwiches that Bucky had picked up from the deli on the corner. 

There’s something distinctly calming about Bucky’s presence these days that Steve can’t chalk up to him being a dryad anymore, even if nowadays it seems to come with a sort of vaguely highschool, palm sweating, stomach aching sort of feeling too. 

“Huh?” Bucky’s mouth is full of sandwich and Steve is really going to have to use these moments as proof that dryads are not nearly as ethereal as stereotypes suggest. 

“I mean, I’m pretty sure we’ve reached the point where we can just ...hang out. Instead of you claiming you’re doing follow up on a problem that was fixed weeks ago. We’re friends now.” 

Natasha meows her agreement and leaps onto the table to do what could be called begging if Steve wasn’t sure that she’d kill him for it the second she gets opposable thumbs back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe one day i'll turn this into a fic where steve and bucky actually get together and the problem with natasha is fixed! who knows?! not me!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first snow is the most important snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is in the same universe as my Gilmore Girls AU [Where You Lead, I Will Follow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15779976) but all you really need to know to understand it is that Steve is a single dad to a daughter named Carter, Bucky is a diner owner, they live in a idyllic quirky small town, and also they're very in love.

_**[Gazebo + Snow](https://twitter.com/mariknickerboc/status/1281342153667608586?s=20) ** _

“It’s the first snow,” Steve breathes into the phone the moment Bucky picks up. 

“Huh?” Bucky sounds half asleep and Steve can picture him there in his dumb tiny bed in his dumb tiny apartment above his dumb diner and he aches a little for it in the way he normally does whenever they decide to actually sleep in their own homes instead of spending the night with each other. 

“It’s  _ snowing,  _ Buck. The  _ first snow.  _ It’s an important day,” Steve says, peering out his window as the snow falls in great big flakes. He wishes Carter were here to enjoy it with him but  _ noooo,  _ she had to go off to college so that she can get a fancy degree to make the amount Steve spent on her private school education worth it. She better support him in his old age after this.

“Don’t you normally do this little song and dance with Carter?” Bucky asks, and Steve can hear the sound of him getting out of bed, padding across the wood floor and the rustle of a curtain being drawn, “Shit, it really is coming down out there.”

“Meet me in the gazebo.” Steve hadn’t thought about it before saying it, but now that it’s out of his mouth it feels  _ right _ . The sort of thing that Steve should absolutely go full steam ahead with. 

“It’s the middle of the night, Steve,” Bucky says, “And  _ freezing.”  _

“But you’re doing it aren’t you? I bet you’re putting on your shoes right this second,” Steve says as he shoves his feet into his winter boots and dons a jacket over his pajamas. 

The sigh on the other end of the line let’s Steve know that Bucky is  _ absolutely  _ putting on his shoes and going along with Steve’s hair brained idea. 

There’s quiet as Steve tromps through the snow towards the center of town, the snow crunching softly under his boots and the whole world bathed in that peaceful quiet that a good dusting of snow always seems to bring. 

“Fuck, it’s cold out here.” 

“A-ha!” Steve crows, “I knew you were doing it.” 

When he gets to the center of town Bucky is there, tucked into the shelter of the gazebo and he looks almost as gorgeous as their snow covered, idyllic little town. Maybe more, Steve thinks when he gets close enough that he can see the little frown twisting his mouth, the way his dark hair is poking out from under his hat haphazardly, the bright red mittens that Carter had poorly knit for him on his hands. 

Steve loves his stupid, perfect town, and his stupid perfect life, and his terribly terribly smart perfect daughter. And he loves Bucky. God, he really fucking loves Bucky. 

“Howdy sailor, you here for a long time or a good time cause I’m lookin for both,” Steve jokes, stepping into Bucky’s space. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Bucky says, but he sounds far too fond to be bothered.

“That’s much less offensive when you’re wearing those mittens.” Steve says, pressing in close to Bucky’s body heat as he wraps his arms around Steve.

“Hey, these mittens are great,” Bucky insists, always willing to defend Carter, which is approximately item number 3 on Steve’s itemized list of 127 things he loves about Bucky. 

“I love you,” Steve says and kisses Bucky’s jaw, brushing his lips over the scruff of hair there. “We should go inside and you can make me coffee.” 

“It’s the middle of the night, Steve.” 

“I know, that’s the perfect time for coffee.” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the prompt was "twilight", I can't be held accountable.

_**[marina + twilight](https://twitter.com/canistakahari/status/1281343943955943426?s=20) ** _

“You got the snacks?” Bucky asks as the two sixteen year olds make their way down the dock, heading for the little blue and white houseboat that the Barnes call their own. 

“Of course,” Steve says, waving the plastic bag in front of Bucky’s face, “You brought the movies?” 

“I had to sneak them out of Becca’s room, which was a pain in the ass, but yes.” Bucky says, patting the side of his backpack. 

When they get to the houseboat it’s exactly as they left it. The thing is mostly Steve and Bucky’s hangout space at this point and it shows in the rainbow flag and posters that they’ve tacked onto one of the walls of the tiny living area, and the clutter of Bucky’s sports equipment and Steve’s art supplies. 

_ Theoretically _ it’s the Barnes family’s, considering they pay for the dock space and the upkeep, but it’s gotten a little old, and they take it out as a family maybe 3 times a year while the rest of the time Steve and Bucky fuck off to it whenever they get a chance, so the two have more or less laid claim to the thing. 

Steve flops onto the rickety convertible couch while Bucky loads up the dvd player attached to the tiny tv and then throws himself down next to Steve. 

Steve starts doling out snacks while Bucky navigates the dvd player with the remote, and he’s just biting into a twizzler when Bella Swan, saying “ I'd never given much though to how I would die,”  signals the beginning of the movie. 

“I would miss Phoenix,” Bucky says along with the movie, “I would miss the heat.” 

“I can’t believe you know every line,” Steve says as he busts into a bag of mini peanut butter cups and offers it up to Bucky. 

“Don’t even pretend you  _ don’t  _ Rogers.” And okay, Steve really  _ can’t  _ pretend he doesn’t. This is, afterall, not the first time they’ve escaped to the houseboat to marathon the entire goddamn Twilight series.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't been on a houseboat since one of my uncles had one when I was like 12 and we did my birthday on it so if I got something wrong about houseboats and you feel the deep need to tell me about it, consider, idk, not.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky meets a mermaid when he's six. Over the years they fall in love. Because of course they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to remove myself from the narrative where this fill is FIVE THOUSAND WORDS. THANKS RENE. It should honestly be it's own separate fic but also I will not be editing it at this moment, I refuse, so it's staying in this as just a fill for now.

[ **_Beach + Knife_ ** ](https://twitter.com/deisderium/status/1281344391299375105?s=20)

Bucky meets Steve when he’s six. 

His parents have dragged Bucky and his little sisters Becca to the beach, though Bucky finds little exciting about the rocky cold water of the ocean outside the dreary little house on the coast that has apparently been in his ma’s family for generations. 

That all changes when he wanders off, picking over rocks and rotting logs, and meets Steve. Steve with eyes like the waves that crash on the sea, and teeth like knives, and what Bucky knows from the book on sea life his ma bought him are _gills._

When Bucky’s eyes travel lower he finds that there’s also a _tail-_ dark blue and made of scales that Bucky thinks might sparkle if it weren’t overcast out. _._ Though he almost wouldn’t notice it for all the thrashing Steve is doing, wrapped up in a net and bleeding onto the rocky sand. 

The noises Steve makes are guttural- _scared,_ and Bucky knows enough even at six to hold his hands up and make soothing noises as he gets closer. 

“I’m just trying to help, I promise,” He says as he gets close enough to start untangling Steve from the tangle of a net, hacking at the rope with the pocket knife he’d “borrowed” from his pa just in case he had to defend himself against a shark or something else his six year old brain has cooked up as a possibility. 

When he’s done and Steve is free, he gives Bucky a look he doesn’t ever forget- gratitude, and caution, and wary confusion all rolled into one- and then disappears back into the ocean before Bucky can ask all the questions that are trying to bubble up. 

  
  


Bucky doesn’t Steve again the next year. And the next year, when he doesn’t turn up either, he convinces himself it was all a dream created from sheer boredom. 

  
  


The next time Bucky sees Steve he’s 13. He’s in that awkward stage of puberty where his limbs have turned gangly and he can’t ever seem to work them correctly, and for once he’s happy for a summer spent at the coast. Hopefully he’ll get the worst of puberty over and done with away from everyone he knows. 

Unfortunately for Bucky’s sanity, the last 7 years have brought with them the addition of two more little sister’s, and the little house that’s become a little less ramshackle over the years since Bucky’s ma started fixing it has started feeling _a lot_ smaller with their presence. 

Which is why he’s started spending _a lot_ of time outside of it. 

His favorite spot is a little nook in a group of rocks jutting up from the sea, high enough that the tide doesn’t reach it and it stays relatively dry. It’s perfect for Bucky to perch himself in with a good book, only occasionally slipping down over the slippery rocks to get his feet wet when he gets too warm, and whiling away the hours until his ma’s shouts for dinner draw him away for his little slice of paradise. 

Which is where he meets Steve again. 

“It’s you! I didn’t think I’d see you again,” An unfamiliar voice says, nearly startling Bucky out of his skin. “Ma always says it’s always a gamble on whether humans turn up again.” 

There, perched on a nice flat rock just below _Bucky’s_ perfect spot is a boy. He has a tangle of dirty blonde hair, and those same sea-blue eyes Bucky remembers. And when he smiles at Bucky it feels like it should be unsettling, like his mouth is full of knives and could rip Bucky apart. 

“Do mermaids eat people?” Bucky blurts. It’s a reasonable question, Bucky will later insist and continue to insist for years to come every time Steve brings it up. Mermaids and their cannibalistic habits were in one of his books, and that seems a good reason for the state of Steve’s teeth. 

“Why would we do that?” Steve scrunches his nose up in confusion, “Humans are awfully big. It seems like it’d be more effort than it’s worth.” 

“Oh,” Bucky says, and then, scooting forward a little on his rock until his toes are curled over the edge, his knees pressed close to his chest, he holds one hand out, “I’m Bucky. What _do_ you eat?” 

“You can call me Steve,” Steve says, and stares at Bucky’s hand blankly. His tail- _a tail! an actual tail!-_ swishes through the water surrounding their spot before flicking droplets of water up at Bucky, “And I eat fish mostly. And kelp. And things like that. What else would I eat?” 

Bucky’s hand drops down by his side lamely, shrugging. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I thought much about what mermaids eat considering I’d pretty much convinced myself you weren’t real.” 

“Oh,” Steve says, frowning. He seems like he wants to say something more, but there’s a shout of Bucky’s name and the sounds of two of Bucky’s sisters picking their way down the beach while bickering before he can. 

In the space it takes Bucky to turn towards his sisters and then back, Steve’s gone, nothing but the flash of his tail and blonde head disappearing beneath the waves. 

  
  


That summer he sees Steve almost every day, but after the Barnes family leaves for home, Bucky’s youngest sister gets sick. 

The next two years are filled with visits to specialists, and no one can quite come up with an excuse to take the entire family up to the coast during that time. 

It means that the next time Bucky meets Steve he’s sixteen. 

He steals away the first night they’re there, wrapped in a soft sweater to protect himself from the chill that rolls in at night as he walks the familiar path down the beach and to his and Steve’s cluster of rocks jutting up from the shore. 

“Steve!” He hopes against all reason that the friend he hasn’t seen in going on three years is somehow nearby and can hear his calls. “ _Steve!”_

“You _lied,”_ Steve says when he shows up, seemingly refusing to come very close, his head just poking up above the water, “You _said_ you’d come back the next summer.” His tone is accusing, and underneath that _hurt,_ and after he speaks he sinks down under the water until just his eyes, glowing bright in the moonlight, are above the water. He looks like something out of an old book of fairy tales meant to warn kids of danger, all bright eyes and pale skin, sharp bones and pointed ears. 

“I’m _sorry,”_ Bucky says, sliding off the rock and into the water, moving a little closer even as his suddenly soaked clothes put up resistance to moving. “I didn’t mean to lie. I really did want to come back before now.” He reaches out for Steve, and Steve lets him snag one fine boned hand with his own. It should feel weird, maybe. There’s a thin webbing between Steve’s fingers, and something distinctly cold about his hands, like the freezing waters of the Atlantic have seeped into Steve and made him their home. 

It doesn’t though. It doesn’t feel weird at all. It comes, instead, with that feeling that Bucky hadn’t really known the cause for back when he was thirteen, but now understands _deeply._ It’s the same sort of feeling he gets when he sees Bobby Miller stretch in gym, but more, because it’s Steve.

“What happened?” Steve still sounds a little sullen, and Bucky remembers Steve telling him that his ma always said mermaids could hold grudges as long and deep as the sea, and something tells Bucky Steve’s trying to do just that but can’t. 

“Eliza got real sick,” Bucky says, “She’s okay though!” He adds quickly, before Steve can get really worried. He can already see it in the furrow of his brow, and the way his frown changed with just Bucky’s words. Steve doesn’t know either of Bucky’s sisters, but Bucky had spent so much time with Steve that summer when he was thirteen that he surely knows enough about them to worry. “She’s not perfect, but she’s okay now and my parents aren’t spending most their time taking her to weird specialists to figure out what’s wrong, so we were able to come back.” 

“So you’ll be here for the rest of summer?” Steve asks, and they’ve ended up far enough out that Bucky is treading water, Steve’s tail fin brushing against Bucky’s feet every once in a while whenever Steve needs to use it to stay afloat. 

“Of course.” 

“And the summer after that?” Steve asks, though it feels a little like a demand and Bucky can’t help the smile that curls his lips as he nods. 

“Yeah, and the summer after that Stevie.” 

  
  


The next summer, when Bucky is seventeen, he kisses Steve for the first time. 

Well, it might be more accurate to say _Steve_ kisses _Bucky_ for the first time. 

Bucky has what Steve later tells him are absolutely ridiculous notions about the possibilities of what mermaid culture consists of, so he hasn’t done anything. 

Bucky had even attempted to date Olivia O’Clery (which had gone terribly and really cemented the knowledge that Bucky is gay, gay, _gay.)_ and Bobby Miller (which had been _fine._ But also, it had _just_ been fine.) during the school year but neither had exactly worked out. Because, he realizes when Steve drags him down off the rock he’d been sprawled on his stomach talking with Steve on, and plants one on him, neither had been _Steve._

Bucky is dimly aware of flailing for a moment when he’s suddenly in the water, but Steve’s mouth is insistent on his own, and Steve’s hands are holding his waist, keeping him above water, and there’s really not much else to do (not much else Bucky _wants_ to do) but wrap his arms and legs around Steve and kiss him back. 

  
  


The summer after Bucky turns 18 and graduates he moves to the little house on the coast. His ma voices her worries- that Bucky will be too far from a city, that Bucky will be too far from her, that the house is nice to visit but maybe not to live in, and a million others- but inevitably gives her blessing along with the keys. 

His goal, ostensibly, is to continue the work his parents have done over the last decade or so and fix the place up completely. His actual reason, of course, is to be close to Steve, but it’s a little hard to tell people that the reason you want to live in a rickety old house on the beach, in a tiny town on the coast is because your mermaid boyfriend can’t exactly leave the water and come live with you. 

It takes a while- over a year, which is much longer than Bucky wants it to- to earn enough money while working at the general store in town and taking literally every odd job he can find, but he eventually has enough to knock down a wall and make a bigger bathroom that he equips with the biggest soaker tub he can find. 

It’s a truly ridiculous size, bigger than anyone he talks to about it thinks is reasonable, but it’s not like any of them realize it’s for his actual, bonafide mermaid of a partner.

The night after it’s installed and fully ready to use, Bucky spends hours making the trek between the house and the beach with buckets full of water, filling the tub up until it’s ready for Bucky to carry Steve from the ocean and deposit him straight into their brand new soaker tub. 

Steve looks remarkably pleased, his tail swishing through the bath water, his eyes bright in the dim light of a candlelit bathroom. 

“Is this all for a date?”

“Obviously,” Bucky says, leaning over the edge of the tub from where he’s sat beside it on the tile floor to steal a kiss. “I mean, the tub’s more for practicalities purpose, but the candles and mood lighting? That’s definitely just for the date.” 

Steve shakes his head at Bucky, his hands gripping either side of Bucky’s face, a thumb brushing over one cheekbone. Steve’s fingers are long and fine boned, tipped with viciously sharp nails that Bucky knows are capable of tearing into things tougher than flesh but Bucky can’t imagine being fearful of Steve’s touch, can’t imagine doing anything really except leaning into it. 

“Humans are strange,” Steve says and Bucky rolls his eyes, waiting for whatever pearl of wisdom Steve is about to drop, “In the ocean we just give someone something shiny and invite them to be a part of our pod as a trial run. No need for mood lighting.” 

“Oh really? Should I have ditched the mood lighting then and just bought you jewelry?” 

“I mean, there’s no reason not to have _both,”_ Steve insists, a hand dropping from Bucky’s face and coming down to curl into the front of Bucky’s shirt, “Shiny things _do_ always look nice in soft lighting.” 

“Ah. I see, I see. I’ll try to remember that next time I’m planning date night.” 

“It’s really the least you can do,” Steve says solemnly, and then, seemingly sick of Bucky being on the other side of the tub wall, he uses the hand wrapped up in Bucky’s shirt to drag a startled, laughing Bucky into the tub with him. 

  
  


When Bucky’s neighbor (though neighbor is a generous term considering how far their houses are spread apart) Old Lady Walsh announces she’s moving to New Mexico to stay with her daughter and daughter in law, she also announces that she’ll be leaving Bucky her boat. 

Bucky’s not sure the last few years of helping Mrs. Walsh with her garden, picking up her groceries when her arthritis is plaguing her, and fixing the occasional leaky pipe is worth a boat, but he’s also not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not when it gives him one more way to be with Steve. 

Building a dock is _almost_ more effort than it’s worth, and Bucky would stick the goddamn thing in the marina and forget about it, but having it so far away kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a boat. It helps that Steve seems to get a lot of joy out of propping himself up in the sand on the beach and heckling Bucky while he builds it. 

“You know, if you were a mermaid you wouldn’t have to do so much manual labor,” Steve says when Bucky has smashed his thumb with his hammer one too many times, leading to a much needed break, sprawled out in the sand next to Steve. 

“Unfortunately I can’t exactly trade my legs for a tail and some gills, so manual labor it is,” Bucky says, twisting until he can press his mouth to the top of Steve’s freckled shoulder. “This works though. Right?” 

He knows they’ve both given things up. Bucky will never get a wedding in the church his parents were married in while his ma pretends like she’s not crying into a handkerchief. He’ll never adopt kids with Steve, or get to show him off to his friends and family, or bring him home for Thanksgiving and watch his sisters interrogate him like Bucky isn’t the eldest and meant to do that for them instead. Steve’s given up making a pod of his very own, given up his people’s annual migration to warmer waters so that he can stay close to Bucky. Hell, he spends half his life in Bucky’s goddamn bathtub just to _be with him._

It’s worth it though. For both of them. Bucky knows it, can feel it in his bones every time he looks at Steve. 

Steve apparently knows it too, judging by the way he hums his affirmative and shifts down a little, tucking closer into Bucky’s space and pressing their foreheads together. “Of course it does. I love you. Even if you have _these_ weird things,” He says, curling a hand over Bucky’s leg and giving it a little shake, “And are an absolutely terrible swimmer.” 

“Excuse you, I’m a _great_ swimmer.” 

“Sure, for a _human_.” 

  
  


Steve’s late. It’s not surprising, or even unusual really, because Steve’s absolutely _awful_ at keeping to any sort of human schedule. What is surprising however, is the way Steve suddenly appears, rushing up from the depths below Bucky’s boat and grabbing onto the ladder, hoisting himself up until he can anchor himself in place, his arms crossed on the deck and his tail still swishing through the water, his entire body practically vibrating with some sort of excitement. 

“Bucky. _Buck._ I’ve figured it out. I’ve fixed everything. Wanda, she has- And she gave me- I think this is the fix, Bucky. I do. It’s not perfect, and I’ll miss my ma, but Buck, I think I figured it out. I think we can finally-” 

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky cuts in, stopping Steve in his tracks, “What are you talking about?” 

“ _This_ ,” Steve says, fishing a tiny little vial from the net bag tied around his waist and presenting it to Bucky like it’s the key to the universe, “There’s this sea witch, Wanda -she helped my ma when she got sick so I know she’s not up to any tricks. But she gave me this potion. It’ll make me _human,_ Buck.” 

Bucky doesn’t respond for a long moment, staring at the tiny vial of deep green, shimmering liquid in Steve’s hand. 

The first: Steve, human, like Bucky. Marrying Steve in a real wedding. Having a family with him. Steve playing with Bucky’s nieces and nephews on the floor at his parents house. Taking him back home and walking hand in hand through Prospect Park.

It’s a nice thought, but the second one is this: Steve miserable, away from the water. Steve, carrying the guilt that he left his mother without her only child. Steve _unhappy._ Steve becoming something he’s not, something he’s never seemed like he wants to be for _Bucky._

No. He can’t let Steve do this if it isn’t what he really wants. So instead he wraps both his hands over Steve’s and the potion, and asks the question he’s not sure he really, truly wants to, but knows he has to, because this is _Steve. His Steve._

“Steve, do you _want_ to be human?” The answer is written all over Steve’s face, an answer that doesn’t surprise Bucky in the least. “That’s what I thought.” 

“I want to be _with you,”_ Steve says, bringing his other hand up to join his and Bucky’s and squeezing tight. “I want to be able to be enough.” 

It’s a show of vulnerability that Bucky isn’t used to. Steve likes to claim that mermaids have to be hard enough to handle the coldest depths of the sea and everything it has to offer, and that means vulnerability is few and far in between.

“God. Steve. You _are._ You’re more than enough. _This_ is more than enough,” Bucky says, pressing their foreheads together, trying to make the words sink into Steve. “I love you. I love _you,_ and if you tell me this is what you want, I won’t try to convince you otherwise, but if this isn’t- I don’t want to see you changing into something you’ve never wanted to be. This- You and me- It works. As long as I get you, it’s enough for me.” 

“ _Bucky,”_ Steve breathes before kissing Bucky hard, teeth vicious as knives nipping as he pulls away. After, he places the tiny vial into Bucky’s hand and folds it up around it. “I reserve my right to change my mind at any time.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  
  


Somewhere along the line, Bucky starts to get older. 

He’s not sure he notices it at first, not really. Not until there’s fine lines around his eyes and a few greys that keep trying to make an appearance in his hair. It becomes unavoidable after that though, especially when Steve still looks barely any older than he did at 18. 

“How long do mermaids live?” Bucky asks, settled into the soaker tub with his back against the sloped wall of the tub and Steve between his legs, leant back against his chest. It’s winter outside the warm confines of Bucky’s home, which means Steve always seems to enjoy the heated soaker tub just that much more, and is fully relaxed as he leans back against Bucky and toys absently with his fingers. 

“A few hundred years, why?” Steve says, almost a little absent as he flips Bucky’s hand over and traces the lines on his palm. And then, when Bucky goes quiet, when he presses his lips together and stares hard at the ceiling like he can find an answer to this new terrible, terrible fate that involves leaving Steve to live without him for hundreds of years, Steve asks “Humans don’t… You don’t live that long do you?” in a small voice, all of the comfortable relaxation of just moments ago seeming to melt. 

And then- Then it dawns on Bucky. 

“I want to see Wanda. The sea witch that gave you that potion, way back when. I want to meet her.”

  
  


They take Bucky’s boat to an island that isn’t on any map. 

Steve assures him multiple times that there’s no need to announce their arrival or go looking for her. Wanda always knows. And though Bucky’s not sure how much he trusts that, the sea witch doesn’t disappoint, emerging from the trees less than an hour after Bucky’s come ashore. 

“Steve!” Wanda says, warm, “I knew you wouldn’t take that potion I gave you. Pietro kept telling me I was wrong, but I always know these things.” She sounds extremely pleased by this. 

“Some idiot convinced me not to,” Steve says, fond, and then, “We’re actually here for him this time.” 

“Can you do what you did for Steve? But the reverse?” Bucky asks when Wanda’s gaze has settled on him, making him feel rooted to the spot. “Can you make me a mermaid?”

Wanda’s hand is suddenly on his chin, holding him with a vice grip as she drags him downwards to her height. She tips his face this way and that, all the way examining Bucky in a way that feels much like she’s peering into his soul. 

“Well?” Steve asks when Wanda has completed whatever it was she was even doing and released Bucky’s face. 

“I don’t see why not. Stick around a bit, I’ll have it ready soon,” Wanda says, and then, without saying goodbye she disappears back into the trees. 

Soon turns out to be the next morning, and Bucky wakes up from a night spent sleeping on his boat to a sea witch standing above him. 

It is, to say the least, disconcerting.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Wanda says, like him waking up had nothing to do with her boarding his boat and staring at him like a creep. 

Bucky garbles something sleep filled that is meant to be “if you could call it that,” but is probably a series of vague, sleepy syllables. 

“This is the potion,” Wanda says, holding a vial up in front of her and doing more to wake Bucky up completely than any pot of coffee could ever do. “You may take it whenever you wish, but remember, it’s effects are permanent. There’s no going back if you decide one day you’d rather be human.” Wanda tells Bucky as she presses the bottle into his hand. 

“ _Thank you,”_ Bucky says, clutching the potion. It’s bigger than Steve’s had been, a vivid sparkling purple _something_ in a round bottle. “How can I repay you?” 

“Oh, just with this,” Wanda says, and then she’s holding something beneath Bucky’s nose, the smell of it so strong that it makes Bucky’s eyes water. Wanda quickly brings a vial up and captures the tears before pocketing it in her dress. “The tears of a man so in love he’s willing to give up everything. Powerful stuff.” 

  
  


Bucky sees his family one last time. He invites them all to the house for the summer and fills it with the chaos of his sisters’ children, and the warmth of his mother’s laugh. 

They swim in the sea, and Bucky builds sandcastles with his nieces and nephews, and helps to fix dinner with his ma almost every night. 

On the last night, after all the kids have been put to bed, he leads his parents and sisters out onto the beach. 

“I want you to meet someone,” He tells them, to a chorus of questions and a “I _knew it!_ I _knew_ you had a lover up here!” from Becca. 

“Please. I bet of you. Don’t use the word lover again,” Alice pleads with Becca, and Bucky will miss _this._ Will miss his sisters and their bickering. His ma’s sigh and rolling eyes when they bicker, and his father’s patience in ignoring it. 

But he left them already, really, when he moved up here all those years ago and did his best to build a life with Steve, and he can’t ever really bring himself to regret it. 

“This is Steve,” Bucky says when he reaches the spot where Steve is waiting, gesturing with his whole arm to where Steve is sat atop a large rock, his tail in full view, shining in the moonlight. “We’ve uh, been together since I was uh, what, about seventeen?” 

All five of the Barneses are silent for a long moment before they burst into a cacophony. 

“That’s an _actual mermaid!”_ Alice whisper-shrieks. 

“Oh. my. _god.”_ Comes from Eliza, “This explains so much about how you remodeled.” 

“Well, this is certainly not what I thought you were doing up here,” George Barnes, normally unflappable, says, sounding for once distinctly surprised. 

“I’m so glad you haven’t been up here all alone this whole time,” Winnifred says, throwing her arms around her son, misty eyed. 

“Wait-” Becca says, “ _Steve._ You mean Steve from when we were _kids._ I thought you made him up! _You_ let me _believe_ you made him up!” 

“It’s good to finally meet you all,” Steve says, raising one hand in a wave and drawing the attention to him. 

Winnifred doesn’t even seem to think before she’s closing the distance between her and Steve, water soaking her shoes and the bottoms of her pants from where the water surrounded Steve’s perch. And then she’s throwing her arms around Steve in the sort of hug that only Winnifred Barnes can give and squeezing him tight. 

Steve looks a little stunned, which Bucky’s sure is only fair. Bucky’s had a whole lifetime of hugs from his mother, he knows exactly how intense the woman can be. 

“I’m so, _so_ happy to meet you Steve,” She says, and she seems so happy that Bucky actually has someone and hasn’t been alone for the last more than a decade, that Bucky feels a little guilty about what he still has to tell them. 

“I- uh. This isn’t all I brought you out here to tell you. I’m gonna- _Shit,_ this is actually kind of hard to say-”

“He recently visited a sea witch and got a potion that’s going to turn him into a mermaid. Forever.” Steve says bluntly before Bucky can dig himself into a hole with his own words. When Bucky shoots him a _look,_ Steve smiles innocently. “You’re welcome.” 

Bucky expects a blow up. He expects at the very least, that at least one member of his family will try to convince him not to do it, that Steve’s not worth it and he should just _come home_ or something. 

Instead what he gets is to end up the subject of a Barnes family group hug. 

“If you’re going to go become a goddamn mermaid you’re not going to need the house right?” Alice asks. 

“Of course you’re not,” Becca adds, “So we’ll be taking the keys and using it so that we can come visit you.” 

“I’m assuming we’ll be able to visit, obviously” Eliza continues, “Considering you and Steve have managed to make it work all these years.” 

“Yeah,” Bucky says faintly, “Yeah. Of course you can visit.” And he’s not choked up over how readily his family continues to take Bucky’s frankly insane life choices, but okay, he might be a little misty eyed over it.

  
  


Bucky won’t sugar coat it, the transformation fucking _hurts_. Steve stays next to him the entire time though, smoothing back his hair, and making comforting noises when Bucky thrashes in the sand. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Steve whispers, pressing soothing kisses over Bucky’s forehead and cheeks, “I’ll be over soon, I promise.” It’s an empty promise, Bucky knows that, because it’s not like either of them have ever been insane enough before this very moment to take a potion to change their entire goddamn species, but it’s somehow still comforting. 

His entire body aches, his legs feeling like they’re on fire as they’re replaced with a tail. His neck and the skin over his ribs itches in a way that makes Bucky want to scratch his skin off as gills form. Everything is too much, too much, _too much_ as the potion coursed through his veins and his body remakes itself. 

It’s miserable. It’s a miserable fucking experience, and after this, even if Bucky _could_ go back to being human he’s absolutely positive he wouldn’t because this? This fucking _sucks._

His body twists, several somethings feel like they break, and then, blessedly, the whole world goes black. 

When he comes to the pain is gone. 

The pain is gone and water is lapping at Bucky’s face as his body is rocked along by the waves, and Steve is beside him, his hand curled through Bucky’s. 

Bucky’s reminded, suddenly, of the time he heard about how otters hold each other’s hands when they sleep. 

“You’re my otter,” He tells Steve sincerely, squeezing at Steve’s hand with his own. 

“And you’re still delusional from the pain,” Steve says, sounding incredibly fond. 

“ _You’re_ delusional,” Bucky says, because it’s the only counter that comes to mind right now. Maybe he _is_ a bit addled from the whole experience. “What’s my tail look like?” 

He could look, _sure,_ but he refuses. He refuses to open his eyes or move at all right now. He intends to stay just as he is, floating, supported by the water and anchored by Steve, for as long as it takes to not be overwhelmed by the approximately 194 new feelings he’s experiencing. 

“It looks good,” Steve says, and his other hand skates across Bucky’s hip, touch proprietary, and Bucky shivers at the new sensation. “It’s red. With a bit of blue. And frilly. Very flashy. Everyone’ll be jealous of me for snagging you because of it, I’m sure.” 

“Oh good,” Bucky says, with a very fake dramatic sigh of relief, “I didn’t know what I would’ve done if I wasn’t just as devastatingly as a mermaid as I was human.” 

When he finally opens his eyes Steve is right there, looking equal parts long suffering and unwillingly fond. 

And it hits him, as sure as the tide, that now Steve will always be _right there._ They’ll never have to navigate their lives in two different places again. Will always be able to be there to be fond, and annoyed, and hopelessly and devastatingly in love with each other while always, _always_ beside one another. 

And just like that, all of the pain is worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is curious I kind of imagine Bucky's tail looks a little like this betta. He's a very pretty fish boy.  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> none of these are getting edited because they're just little meme fills i'm sorry not sorry


End file.
